Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Vol. 2

by Hiro Ainana

  “Master, are you going to settle down in this city?”

  “No, once I’m done sightseeing here, I’m thinking of heading south toward the old capital.”

  “Sightseeing?!”

  I was already just about done touring Seiryuu City, but I still had to keep my promise to go with Zena to the restaurant on the other side of the inner wall.

  After that, I planned to head toward the old capital and the Labyrinth City Celivera, where the beastfolk girls should be able to live normal lives.

  The reason I’d decided on the old capital as my current destination was that it was apparently famous for its beautiful river and nighttime scenery.

  “Oh, oh, in that case…”

  Arisa drew closer excitedly.

  “After the old capital, I want to go to Labyrinth City!”

  “Yeah, I’d like to see it, too.”

  “Really?! Then it’s a promise!”

  Arisa stuck out her little finger, so I made a pinkie promise with her. She giggled as she looked at our linked fingers.

  With Arisa in tow, I headed toward the stable to meet the beastfolk girls for breakfast.

  I’d have to talk to them about the old capital and Labyrinth City, too.

  After I had everyone eat breakfast, I headed out alone to the general store.

  “Good morning. How are they?”

  “Both of them are still sleeping.”

  Nadi looked tired as she reported back to me.

  The ex-priest Horn had treated the red-helmeted ratman’s wounds, but since he could use only low-grade Holy Magic, it seemed the ratman hadn’t fully recovered.

  The bleeding seemed to have stopped, but apparently, his damaged internal organs could be fully healed only by intermediate Holy Magic or better.

  Huh? Wait, I thought the store manager had “Foundation Magic” and “Forest Magic”—can’t he use one of those for healing?

  Curious, I asked Nadi about it.

  “The boss’s magic isn’t fit for medical treatment. He told me that the most it can do is disinfect wounds and stop bleeding.”

  I guess if the manager were able to use healing, we wouldn’t have needed to go call on the ex-priest Horn in the first place.

  “You can’t use a magic potion or anything?”

  “An intermediate magic potion would work, but those are way too expensive for us to get our hands on.”

  I’d given away all the magic potions I got in the labyrinth to help the wounded, so I had none on me.

  I wouldn’t mind lending them the money to buy some, but I got the feeling that would be too meddlesome of me.

  Nadi seemed to misunderstand my silence.

  “Don’t worry about the medicine,” she said, trying to reassure me. “The boss made an arrangement with an acquaintance. As long as we gather the ingredients, he’ll make it for us on the cheap.”

  Apparently, the store manager had left early in the morning to head for a somewhat distant mountain forest to gather those ingredients.

  It seemed like the manager would take care of the ratman, so next I asked about Mia.

  “The princess didn’t seem to have any external wounds. She still hasn’t regained consciousness?”

  “Little Mia’s not injured, but she seems to be severely fatigued. The boss said she has all the symptoms of someone who’s been short on magic for a long period of time.”

  Magic deficiency… I wished I could transfer some of my own excessive MP to her. Still, what could have weakened her so much?

  “It should be easy to cure her symptoms with the boss’s Foundation Magic spell Mana Transfer or the Forest Magic spell Stamina Charge, but…”

  Nadi explained that even if they used magic to restore her MP or stamina, it simply drained away as if they’d poured water into a pot full of holes. Despite the manager’s long years of experience and Nadi’s extensive knowledge, neither of them could figure out why.

  I used my map to look at Mia’s status.

  She was 130 years old. Female. Level 7. She had two skills—“Water Magic” and “Archery”—and a gift, Spirit Vision. Her titles were Cradle Master and Child of Bolenan Forest.

  Judging by the words child and cradle in her titles, it seemed 130 years old was still very young for an elf. Her appearance, that of an elementary or middle schooler, belied her true age.

  Mia appeared to be a nickname, her real name being Misanaria Bolenan.

  I would have expected a nickname like Misa or Ria, but I guess Mia was more in line with elf custom.

  She didn’t have any status afflictions such as a curse or disease, and there didn’t seem to be anything strange in her titles. Maybe the Cradle Master title meant she was bedridden, but I doubted it.

  As far as I could see, she hadn’t even recovered 10 percent of her stamina, but it seemed like her magic gauge was filling up slowly but surely.

  Maybe the store manager’s treatment had worked this time?

  I wanted to convey this information to Nadi, but I couldn’t explain how I knew it. Maybe I’ll try bringing up the subject and guiding her to notice it herself.

  “Is there anything that would help besides healing magic?”

  “A mana potion would certainly heal Mia, but once again, they’re too expensive,” she added drily. “Everybody’s poor here.” Her smile was strained. “I’m sure bringing her to a mana source or an underground vein would help her recover, too, but the only sources around here are in the count’s castle or the Valley of Dragons.”

  I see… A “source”?

  I wanted to ask her more about the term but had to postpone my questioning when I heard a noise upstairs.

  It was coming from the room Mia was sleeping in, so I checked my map and saw that her status had changed from Fainted to None.

  Nadi didn’t seem to have heard it, so I tried to hint at her.

  “I think I heard something upstairs. Maybe she’s awake?”

  “Wow, Mr. Satou. Your ears are as sharp as any elf or rabbitfolk.”

  Rabbitfolk? Like…bunny girls?

  There didn’t appear to be any in Seiryuu City, but that was something I’d like to see.

  Nadi and I went upstairs to visit the room Mia slept in.

  I waited outside the door for Nadi to give me the go-ahead to come inside.

  “Mia, are you awake?”

  “Who?”

  “I’m Nadi, the clerk of this shop. My boss—the manager—is Yusaratoya.”

  “Yuya’s…?”

  Mia’s voice sounded as youthful as her appearance suggested. It was a little husky, probably since she’d just woken up.

  “Who’s out there?”

  Mia seemed to have noticed me waiting outside.

  Was it just strong intuition? No, maybe she just noticed that there were two sets of footsteps coming up the stairs.

  “That’s the person who rescued you and your red-helmeted friend.”

  “Mize?”

  Mia murmured as Nadi spoke.

  Between her and the store manager, I had to wonder whether speaking so little was a racial characteristic.

  “Is Mize the ratman with the red helmet? He’s asleep now that he’s been healed.”

  “Mm.”

  It would have been more accurate to say we’d “finished his emergency first aid,” but to say so honestly would probably just fan the flames of Mia’s anxiety.

  After this interruption, Nadi finished introducing me.

  “So, the person outside the door is called Mr. Satou.”

  “…Satou.”

  “Is it okay if he comes in?”

  “Mm.”

  Nadi called to me, and I entered the room.

  My guess was that it was Nadi’s bedroom; it was refined and tasteful but somehow quite feminine at the same time.

  I felt like there were a few too many decorative plants, though.

  “Satou?”

  I nodded and introduced myself. “Nice to meet you. I’m Satou, a peddler.”<
br />
  With her silver eyes and lovely face, she almost looked like a doll.

  “Spiritualist?”

  I tilted my head uncertainly at Mia’s sudden question.

  I could use a little Fire Magic, but from what I understood of my introductory magic books, spirits had nothing to do with it.

  Of course, if there were any sexy water spirits like undines or voluptuous forest spirits like dryads, I’d be happy to meet them.

  “No, I’ve sadly never met any spirits.”

  “Can’t see them?”

  Mia’s expression looked mystified.

  I asked Nadi if they were really something I should be able to see. “Only people with the gift of Spirit Vision can see them,” she informed me.

  Mia did have the Spirit Vision gift. But the store manager didn’t have it, so I guess not all elves could see spirits.

  I helped Nadi give Mia a drink of water.

  “Do you think you can eat something?”

  “Mm.”

  “I’ll go make some soup or porridge, then. Can you stay with Mia awhile?”

  Nadi seemed apologetic as she asked, so I readily agreed.

  While the simple scent of porridge started to drift up the stairs, Mia and I passed the time by talking about spirits.

  Of course, without Nadi around to be my trusty interpreter, I wasn’t able to piece together the full details about spirits from Mia’s short words.

  Sprinkled in among unhelpful adjectives like fluffy and sparkly, I managed to gather that they were creatures that “make underground veins flow,” “channel mana,” and “have attributes.”

  I also gained two skills from the conversation, “Elvish Language” and “Decryption,” and apparently won over Mia as well.

  I’d gained the “Elvish Language” skill when I asked Mia how to say “good morning” in Elvish. I think the reason I learned “Decryption” goes without saying.

  After eating the porridge, Mia started to look sleepy.

  “I’m sorry for staying so long. I’ll be heading home soon.”

  “Mrr.”

  I started to stand up from the chair next to the bed, but Mia stopped me by grabbing on to the sleeve of my robe.

  “Stay,” she requested anxiously.

  Well, I guess I can stay until she falls asleep.

  “This letter means chair, right? That makes ten cards for me!”

  “Whoa!”

  “Arisa, you’re too good at this, ma’am!”

  “Tama, Pochi, don’t waste time being envious. Focus!”

  “You’re so smart, Arisa.”

  I heard everyone’s excited voices coming from a corner of the courtyard of the Gatefront Inn. That last voice tipped me off that Yuni was playing along with my set of kids.

  I didn’t see them when I entered the courtyard, so I looked at my radar and found them gathered in a small hiding place in the shadow of a hedge, playing some kind of game.

  They were all sitting in the circle around a spread of facedown cards set up like a game of Concentration.

  Oh, those were the cards I’d bought yesterday.

  Watching them for a moment, I gathered that they had to guess what vocabulary word the face-up letters represented in order to acquire that card.

  They could confirm the answer by looking at the picture on the back, so even players who didn’t know the letters yet could learn from playing.

  “Looks like fun.”

  “Master, sir!”

  “We learned letterrrrs!”

  Pochi and Tama spotted me in the shadows and immediately rushed over.

  “Look at this, sir!”

  “Three carrrds!”

  The pair held up the cards they’d won, clearly hoping for praise as they looked at me. Just as they had hoped, I patted them both on the head. “Great job.”

  While I was at it, I thought I’d ask them about the cards they’d learned.

  “What’s this card called?”

  “That one’s meat!”

  No, it was a goat.

  “And what’s this one?”

  “That’s meat, too.”

  Nope. It was a rabbit.

  I looked over at Arisa, who surely knew they were wrong.

  “Well…they looked so confident when they said ‘meat,’ I couldn’t bear to tell them they were wrong,” Arisa confessed with a wry smile.

  I tried to teach them the correct words.

  “Were we wrong? It’s a goat, but it’s still meat, sir.”

  “Huuh? It’s a rabbit, but it’s meeeat.”

  The two girls looked puzzled.

  “Then does that mean this card is bird, not bird meat?”

  Liza joined in on the conversation, looking surprised. If you know what kind of animal it is, why do you need to add “meat” at all?…was what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t quite do it.

  I guess that was how Arisa felt.

  Instead, I ended up teaching them the words one card at a time.

  “How do you write meat, sir?”

  “Like this.”

  There was no “meat” card, so I added one by hand.

  > Skill Acquired: “Painting”

  > Skill Acquired: “Penmanship”

  > Skill Acquired: “Games”

  Drawing a single card netted me a windfall of skills.

  As a bonus, teaching Pochi and Tama the word for meat had earned me the “Education” skill. This seemed useful, so I maxed out its skill points.

  Maybe I should keep a list of ideas for actions that might earn me skills and have a skill-acquisition rally or something.

  Chatting with the girls as I made the card, I learned to my surprise that Arisa couldn’t read or write Shigan letters.

  “The kingdom I came from was terribly chauvinistic. I couldn’t get anyone to teach me—they said even royal ladies didn’t need to know how to read! I snuck into my older brothers’ classes to learn to read and write the official language so that I could read my magic books.”

  Arisa usually acted spoiled, but she was actually quite worldly.

  “So learning cards like these won’t take me more than three days, just you watch!”

  Supporting her bold claim, she already knew thirty of the one hundred cards in the deck.

  “That’s amazing! What’s your secret?” Yuni still hadn’t managed to memorize a single card, so she asked Arisa for help.

  “I remember the groups of letters as a single picture. Why not try it with some words that interest you?”

  “Oh, Yuni! So this is where you’ve been hiding!”

  There was a rustling in the hedges, and Martha appeared. Her hair had gotten tangled in the thin branches, so I helped free her.

  Arisa’s nostrils flared, and she muttered something incomprehensible like “They’re not daphne bushes, but they’ll do!” Maybe it was a reference to a manga she’d read in her previous life or something.

  When Martha appeared, Yuni looked flustered.

  I guess she’s probably still on the clock.

  “I’m sorry, Martha.”

  “Goodness, you’re such a child. Come on, then. I’ll help you with cleaning the stalls in the stable and changing out the hay, but only until lunchtime.”

  Martha scolded Yuni lightly, then rolled up her sleeves, ready to make up for her little protégé’s error.

  “Oh, um…I did it already.”

  “Huh?”

  Yuni spoke up apologetically, peeking up at Martha with her eyes round and innocent.

  “Pochi and Tama helped me, you see.”

  Apparently, she’d finished her work early thanks to the pair’s help, which was why she was playing with the others.

  “We went like, ‘Raaah!’ and got water from the well, sir!”

  “And we took care of horrrses.”

  The two girls explained the work they’d done with the help of vigorous gestures.

  “Very good,” I praised them, petting each on the head. Tama nuzzled my hand happily
in response; Pochi stayed still except for her tail, which wagged back and forth so hard, it looked like it’d fall off.

  In the end, after warning Yuni that she should always report in when her work was completed, Martha ended up joining me in watching the card game.

  “Hello there! My name is Arisa.”

  “I’m Pochi, ma’am!”

  “Tamaaa.”

  The three young girls started introducing themselves as soon as the door to Mia’s room opened.

  The sound of the girls running up the stairs must have frightened Mia, who had pulled her blanket up over her head and was peering out cautiously through a little crack.

  When I mentioned over lunch that I was visiting not just the ratman knight but also the princess he was protecting, everyone insisted on coming along to meet her.

  I figured Mia was probably lonely anyway, and we could give Nadi a break from watching her.

  Of course, Liza and Lulu came along with the younger kids. Those two were downstairs helping Nadi. The medicine Lulu had taken this morning seemed to have worked; she had eaten lunch normally, and her complexion looked much better.

  “M-Mia.”

  Mia pulled the blanket down just under her eyes and shyly introduced herself with as few words as ever.

  I couldn’t hide my surprise when I looked at Mia’s bashful face.

  Her eyes, which I was sure had been silver before, were now a beautiful emerald green.

  It didn’t seem like she’d been replaced with another person or anything, so maybe the color of a person’s eyes changed when they were using Spirit Vision?

  “What the…?”

  “She’s a princess, sir!”

  “Your hair’s prettyyyy!”

  Arisa was staring at Mia’s face in shock, too, though for a different reason.

  She was probably misunderstanding the same way Nadi had.

  “Didn’t you say she was a rat princess?!”

  “No, I didn’t. I said she was a princess being defended by a ratman, remember?” I corrected her. I had to admit, I’d used rather misleading words in hopes of messing with them a little.

  I guess Arisa wasn’t able to tell with Status Check that Mia was an elf when she was under a blanket, though. Unlike my menu AR display, it seemed like she needed a visible target to analyze it.

  Egged on by Arisa’s boldness, Pochi and Tama quickly became comfortable with Mia.